In 1678 Dryden's next play, a comedy, entitled "Limberham," was acted at
Dorset-garden theatre, but was endured for three nights only. It was
designed, the author informs us, as a satire on "the crying sin of
keeping;" and the crime for which it suffered was, that "it expressed
too much of the vice which it decried." Grossly indelicate as this play
still is, it would seem, from the Dedication to Lord Vaughan, that much
which offended on the stage was altered, or omitted, in the press;[30]
yet more than enough remains to justify the sentence pronounced against
it by the public. Mr. Malone seems to suppose Shaftesbury's party had
some share in its fate, supposing that the character of Limberham had
reference to their leader. Yet surely, although Shaftesbury was
ridiculous for aiming at gallantry, from which his age and personal
infirmity should have deterred him, Dryden would never have drawn the
witty, artful politician, as a silly, henpecked cully. Besides, Dryden
was about this time supposed even himself to have some leaning to the
popular cause; a supposition irreconcilable with his caricaturing the
foibles of Shaftesbury.
The tragedy of "Oedipus" was written by Dryden in conjunction with Lee;
the entire first and third acts were the work of our author, who also
arranged the general plan, and corrected the whole piece. Having offered
some observations[31] elsewhere upon this play, and the mode in which
its celebrated theme has been treated by the dramatists of different
nations, I need not here resume the subject. The time of the first
representation is fixed to the beginning of the playing season, in
winter 1678-9, although it was not printed until 1679.[32] Both
"Limberham" and "Oedipus" were acted at the Duke's theatre; so that it
would seem that our author was relieved from his contract with the
King's house, probably because the shares were so much diminished in
value, that his appointment was now no adequate compensation for his
labour. The managers of the King's company complained to the Lord
Chamberlain, and endeavoured, as we have seen, by pleading upon the
contract, to assert their right to the play of "Oedipus."[33] But their
claim to reclaim the poet and the play appears to have been set aside,
and Dryden continued to give his performances to the Duke's theatre
until the union of the two companies.
Dryden was now to do a new homage to Shakespeare, by refitting for the
stage the play of "Troilus and Cressida," which the author left in a
state of strange imperfection, resembling more a chronicle, or legend,
than a dramatic piece. Yet it may be disputed whether Dryden has greatly
improved it even in the particulars which he censures in his original.
His plot, though more artificial, is at the same time more trite than
that of Shakespeare. The device by which Troilus is led to doubt the
constancy of Cressida is much less natural than that she should have
been actually inconstant; her vindication by suicide is a clumsy, as
well as a hackneyed expedient; and there is too much drum and trumpet in
the grand _finale_, where "Troilus and Diomede fight, and both parties
engage at the same time. The Trojans make the Greeks retire, and Troilus
makes Diomede give ground, and hurts him. Trumpets sound. Achilles
enters with his Myrmidons, on the backs of the Trojans, who fight in a
ring, encompassed round. Troilus, singling Diomede, gets him down, and
kills him; and Achilles kills Troilus upon him. All the Trojans die upon
the place, Troilus last." Such a _bellum internecinum_ can never be
waged to advantage upon the stage. One extravagant passage in this play
serves strongly to evince Dryden's rooted dislike to the clergy. Troilus
exclaims,--
"That I should trust the daughter of a priest!
Priesthood, that makes a merchandise of heaven!
Priesthood, that sells even to their prayers and blessings,
And forces us to pay for our own cozenage!
_Thersites_. Nay, cheats heaven too with entrails and with offals;
Gives it the garbage of a sacrifice,
And keeps the best for private luxury.
Troilus_. Thou hast deserved thy life for cursing priests.
Let me embrace thee; thou art beautiful:
That back, that nose, those eyes are beautiful:
Live; thou art honest, for thou hat'st a priest."
Dryden prefixed to "Troilus and Cressida" his excellent remarks on the
Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy, giving up, with dignified indifference
the faults even of his own pieces, when they contradict the rules his
later judgment had adopted. How much his taste had altered since his
"Essay of Dramatic Poesy," or at least since his "Remarks on Heroic
Plays," will appear from the following abridgment of his new maxims. The
plot, according to these remarks, ought to be simply and naturally
detailed from its commencement to its conclusion,--a rule which excluded
the crowded incidents of the Spanish drama; and the personages ought to
be dignified and virtuous, that their misfortunes might at once excite
pity and terror. The plots of Shakespeare and Fletcher are meted by this
rule, and pronounced inferior in mechanic regularity to those of Ben
Jonson. The character of the agents, or persons, are next to be
considered; and it is required that their manner shall be at once
marked, dramatic, consistent, and natural. And here the supereminent
power of Shakespeare, in displaying the manners, bent, and inclination
of his characters, is pointed out to the reader's admiration. The
copiousness of his invention, and his judgment in sustaining the ideas
which he started, are illustrated by referring to Caliban, a creature of
the fancy, begot by an incubus upon a witch, and furnished with a
person, language, and character befitting his pedigree on both sides.
The passions are then considered as included in the manners; and Dryden,
at once and peremptorily, condemns both the extravagance of language,
which substitutes noise for feeling, and those points and turns of wit,
which misbecome one actuated by real and deep emotion. He candidly gives
an example of the last error from his own Montezuma who, pursued by his
enemies, and excluded from the fort, describes his situation in a long
simile, taken besides from the sea, which he had only heard of for the
first time in the first act. As a description of natural passion, the
famous procession of King Richard in the train of the fortunate usurper
is quoted, in justice to the divine author. From these just and liberal
rules of criticism, it is easy to discover that Dryden had already
adopted a better taste, and was disgusted with comedies, where the
entertainment arose from bustling incident, and tragedies, where
sounding verse was substituted for the delineation of manners and
expression of feeling. These opinions he pointedly expresses in the
Prologue to "Troilus and Cressida," which was spoken by Betterton,
representing the ghost of Shakespeare:
"See, my loved Britons, see your Shakespeare rise,
An awful ghost confessed to human eyes!
Unnamed, methinks, distinguished I had been,
From other shades, by this eternal green,
About whose wreaths the vulgar poets strive,
And, with a touch, their withered bays revive.
Untaught, unpractised, in a barbarous age,
I found not, but created first the stage.
And if I drained no Greek or Latin store,
'Twas that my own abundance gave me more.
On foreign trade I needed not rely,
Like fruitful Britain, rich without supply.
In this, my rough-drawn play, you shall behold
Some master-strokes, so manly and so bold,
That he who meant to alter, found 'em such;
He shook, and thought it sacrilege to touch.
Now, where are the successors to my name?
What bring they to fill out a poet's fame?
Weak, short-lived issues of a feeble age;
Scarce living to be christened on the stage!
For humour _farce_, for love they _rhyme_ dispense,
That tolls the knell for their departed sense."
It is impossible to read these lines, remembering Dryden's earlier
opinions, without acknowledging the truth of the ancient proverb, _Magna
est veritas, et praevalebit_.
The "Spanish Friar," our author's most successful comedy, succeeded
"Troilus and Cressida." Without repeating the remarks which are prefixed
to the play in the present edition,[34] we may briefly notice, that in
the tragic scenes our author has attained that better strain of dramatic
poetry which he afterwards evinced in "Sebastian." In the comic part,
the well-known character of Father Dominic, though the conception only
embodies the abstract idea which the ignorant and prejudiced fanatics of
the day formed to themselves of a Romish priest, is brought out and
illustrated with peculiar spirit. The gluttony, avarice, debauchery, and
meanness of Dominic are qualified with the talent and wit necessary to
save him from being utterly detestable; and, from the beginning to the
end of the piece, these qualities are so happily tinged with insolence
hypocrisy, and irritability, that they cannot be mistaken for the
avarice, debauchery, gluttony, and meanness of any other profession than
that of a bad churchman. In the tragic plot, we principally admire the
general management of the opening, and chiefly censure the cold-blooded
barbarity and perfidy of the young queen, in instigating the murder of
the deposed sovereign, and then attempting to turn the guilt on her
accomplice. I fear Dryden here forgot his own general rule, that the
tragic hero and heroine should have so much virtue as to entitle their
distress to the tribute of compassion. Altogether, however, the "Spanish
Friar," in both its parts, is an interesting, and almost a fascinating
play; although the tendency, even of the tragic scenes, is not laudable,
and the comedy, though more decent in language, is not less immoral in
tendency than was usual in that loose age.
Dryden attached considerable importance to the art with which the comic
and tragic scenes of the "Spanish Friar" are combined; and in doing so
he has received the sanction of Dr. Johnson. Indeed, as the ardour of
his mind ever led him to prize that task most highly, on which he had
most lately employed his energy, he has affirmed, in the dedication to
the "Spanish Friar," that there was an absolute necessity for combining
two actions in tragedy, for the sake of variety. "The truth is," he
adds, "the audience are grown weary of continued melancholy scenes; and
I dare venture to prophesy, that few tragedies, except those in verse,
shall succeed in this age, if they are not lightened with a course of
mirth; for the feast is too dull and solemn without the fiddles." The
necessity of the relief alluded to may be admitted, without allowing
that we must substitute either the misplaced charms of versification, or
a secondary comic plot, to relieve the solemn weight and monotony of
tragedy. It is no doubt true, that a highly-buskined tragedy, in which
all the personages maintain the funereal pomp usually required from the
victims of Melpomene, is apt to be intolerably tiresome, after all the
pains which a skilful and elegant poet can bestow upon finishing it. But
it is chiefly tiresome, because it is unnatural; and, in respect of
propriety, ought no more to be relieved by the introduction of a set of
comic scenes, independent of those of a mournful complexion, than the
_sombre_ air of a funeral should be enlivened by a concert of fiddles.
There appear to be two legitimate modes of interweaving tragedy with
something like comedy. The first and most easy, which has often been
resorted to, is to make the lower or less marked characters of the
drama, like the porter in "Macbeth," or the fool in "King Lear," speak
the language appropriated to their station, even in the midst of the
distresses of the piece; nay, they may be permitted to have some slight
under-intrigue of their own. This, however, requires the exertion of
much taste and discrimination; for if we are once seriously and deeply
interested in the distress of the play, the intervention of anything
like buffoonery may unloosen the hold which the author has gained on the
feelings of the audience. If such subordinate comic characters are of a
rank to intermix in the tragic dialogue, their mirth ought to be
chastened, till their language bears a relation to that of the higher
persons. For example, nothing can be more absurd than in "Don
Sebastian," and some of Southerne's tragedies, to hear the comic
character answer in prose, and with a would-be witticism, to the solemn,
unrelaxed blank verse of his tragic companion.[35] Mercutio is, I think,
one of the best instances of such a comic person as may be reasonably
and with propriety admitted into tragedy: from which, however, I do not
exclude those lower characters, whose conversation appears absurd if
much elevated above their rank. There is, however, another mode, yet
more difficult to be used with address, but much more fortunate in
effect when it has been successfully employed. This is, when the
principal personages themselves do not always remain in the buckram of
tragedy, but reserve, as in common life, lofty expressions for great
occasions, and at other times evince themselves capable of feeling the
lighter, as well as the more violent or more deep, affections of the
mind. The shades of comic humour in Hamlet, in Hotspur, and in
Falconbridge, are so far from injuring, that they greatly aid the effect
of the tragic scenes, in which these same persons take a deep and
tragical share. We grieve with them, when grieved, still more because we
have rejoiced with them when they rejoiced; and, on the whole, we
acknowledge a deeper _frater feeling_, as Burns has termed it, in men
who are actuated by the usual changes of human temperament, than in
those who, contrary to the nature of humanity, are eternally actuated by
an unvaried strain of tragic feeling. But whether the poet diversifies
his melancholy scenes by the passing gaiety of subordinate characters;
or whether he qualifies the tragic state of his heroes by occasionally
assigning lighter tasks to them; or whether he chooses to employ both
modes of relieving the weight of misery through live long acts; it is
obviously unnecessary that he should distract the attention of his
audience, and destroy the regularity of his play, by introducing a comic
plot with personages and interest altogether distinct, and intrigue but
slightly connected with that of the tragedy. Dryden himself afterwards
acknowledged that though he was fond of the "Spanish Friar," he could
not defend it from the imputation of Gothic and unnatural irregularity;
"for mirth and gravity destroy each other, and are no more to be allowed
for decent, than a gay widow laughing in a mourning habit."[36]
The "Spanish Friar" was brought out in 1681-2, when the nation was in a
ferment against the Catholics on account of the supposed plot. It is
dedicated to John, Lord Haughton, as _protestant play_ inscribed to a
_protestant patron_. It was also the last dramatic work, excepting the
political play of the "Duke of Guise," and the masque of "Albion and
Albanius," brought out by our author before the Revolution. And in
political tendency, the "Spanish Friar" has so different colouring from
these last pieces, that it is worth while to pause to examine the
private relations of the author when he composed it.
Previous to 1678, Lord Mulgrave, our author's constant and probably
effectual patron, had given him an opportunity of discoursing over his
plan of an epic poem to the king and Duke of York; and in the preface to
"Aureng-Zebe" in that year, the poet intimates an indirect complaint
that the royal brothers had neglected his plan.[37] About two years
afterwards, Mulgrave seems himself to have fallen into disgrace, and was
considered as in opposition to the court.[38] Dryden was deprived of his
intercession, and seems in some degree to have shared his disgrace. The
"Essay on Satire" became public in November 1679, and being generally
imputed to Dryden, it is said distinctly by one libeller, that his
pension was for a time interrupted.[39] This does not seem likely; it is
more probable, that Dryden shared the general fate of the household of
Charles II., whose appointments were but irregularly paid; but perhaps
his supposed delinquency made it more difficult for him than others to
obtain redress. At this period broke out the pretended discovery of the
Popish Plot, in which Dryden, even in "Absalom and Achitophel," evinces
a partial belief.[40] Not encouraged, if not actually discountenanced,
at court; sharing in some degree the discontent of his patron Mulgrave;
above all, obliged by his situation to please the age in which he lived,
Dryden did not probably hold the reverence of the Duke of York so
sacred, as to prevent his making the ridicule of the Catholic religion
the means of recommending his play to the passions of the audience.
Neither was his situation at court in any danger from his closing on
this occasion with the popular tide. Charles, during the heat of the
Popish plot, was so far from being in a situation to incur odium by
dismissing a laureate for having written a _Protestant play_, that he
was obliged for a time to throw the reins of government into the hands
of those very persons to whom the Papists were most obnoxious. The
inference drawn from Dryden's performance was that he had deserted the
court; and the Duke of York was so much displeased with the tenor of the
play, that it was the only one of which, on acceding to the crown, he
prohibited the representation. The "Spanish Friar" was often objected to
the author by his opponents, after he had embraced the religion there
satirised. Nor was the idea of his apostasy from the court an invention
of his enemies after his conversion, for it prevailed at the
commencement of the party-disputes; and the name of Dryden is, by a
partisan of royalty, ranked with that of his bitter foe Shadwell, as
followers of Shaftesbury in 1680.[41] But whatever cause of coolness or
disgust our author had received from Charles or his brother, was
removed, as usual, so soon as his services became necessary; and thus
the supposed author of a libel on the king became the ablest defender of
the cause of monarchy, and the author of the "Spanish Friar" the
advocate and convert of the Catholic religion.
In his private circumstances Dryden must have been even worse situated
than at the close of the last Section. His contract with the King's
Company was now ended, and long before seems to have produced him little
profit. If Southerne's biographer can be trusted, Dryden never made by a
single play more than one hundred pounds; so that, with all his
fertility, he could not, at his utmost exertion, make more than two
hundred a year by his theatrical labours.[42] At the same time, they so
totally engrossed his leisure, that he produced no other work of
consequence after the "_Annus Mirabilis._"[43] If, therefore, the
payment of his pension was withheld, whether from the resentment of the
court, or the poverty of the exchequer, he might well complain of the
"unsettled state" which doomed him to continue these irksome and
ill-paid labours.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Malone, vol. i. p. 124.
[2] Dennis's account of these feuds, though not strictly accurate is
lively, and too curious to be suppressed. "Nothing," says Dennis, "is
more certain, than that Mr. Settle, who is now (1717) the city poet, was
formerly a poet of the court. And at what time was he so? Why, in the
reign of King Charles the Second, when that court was more gallant and
more polite than ever the English court perhaps had been before; when
there was at court the present and the late Duke of Buckingham, the late
Earl of Dorset, Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, famous for his wit and
poetry, Sir Charles Sedley, Mr. Saville, Mr. Buckley, and several
others.
"Mr. Settle's first tragedy, 'Cambyses, King of Persia,' was acted for
three weeks together. The second, which was 'The Empress of Morocco,'
was acted for a month together; and was in such high esteem both with
the court and town that it was acted at Whitehall before the king by the
gentlemen and ladies of the court; and the prologue, which was spoken by
the Lady Betty Howard, was writ by the famous Lord Rochester. The
bookseller who printed it, depending upon the prepossession of the town,
ventured to distinguish it from all the plays that had been ever
published before; for it was the first play that ever was sold in
England for two shillings, and the first that ever was printed with
cuts. The booksellers at that time of day had not discovered so much of
the weakness of their gentle readers as they have done since, nor so
plainly discovered that fools, like children, are to be drawn in by
gewgaws.--Well; but what was the event of this great success? Mr. Settle
began to grow insolent, as any one may see, who reads the epistle
dedicatory to 'The Empress of Morocco.' Mr. Dryden, Mr. Shadwell, and
Mr. Crowne, began to grow jealous; and they three in confederacy wrote
'Remarks on the Empress of Morocco.' Mr. Settle answered them; and,
according to the opinion which the town then had of the matter (for I
have utterly forgot the controversy), had by much the better of them
all. In short, Mr. Settle was then a formidable rival to Mr. Dryden; and
I remember very well, that not only the town, but the university of
Cambridge, was very much divided in their opinions about the preference
that ought to be given to them; and in both places the younger fry
inclined to Elkanah."
[3] Lord Mulgrave wrote the prologue when Settle's play was first acted
at court; Lord Rochester's was written for the second occasion; both
were spoken by the beautiful Lady Elizabeth Howard.
[4] See this offensive dedication in the account of Settle's controversy
with Dryden.
[5] A copy of this rare edition (the gift of my learned friend, the Rev.
Henry White of Lichfield) is now before me. The engravings are
sufficiently paltry; and had the play been published even in the present
day, it would have been accounted dear at two shillings. The name of the
publisher is William Cademan, the date 1673. [See H. Morley, "English
Plays," pp. 351, 352.--ED.]
[6] This title is omitted in subsequent editions.
[7] Of whom it was said, that he spoke "to the tune of a good speech."
[8] As, for example, this stage-direction: "Here a company of villains
in ambush from behind the scenes discharge their guns at Muly-Hamet; at
which Muly-Hamet starting and turning, Hametalhaz from under his
priest's habit draws a sword and passes at Muly-H., which pass is
intercepted by Abdeleader. They engage in a very fierce fight with the
villains, who also draw and assist Hametalhaz, and go off several ways
fighting; after the discharge of other guns heard from within, and the
clashing of swords, enter again Muly-Hamet, driving in some of the
former villains, which he kills."
[9] In the fifth act the scene draws and discovers Crimalhaz cast down
on the _guanches_, i.e. hung on a wall set with spikes, scythe-blades,
and hooks of iron; which scene (to judge from the engraving) exhibited
the mangled limbs and wasted bones of former sufferers, suspended in
agreeable confusion. With this pleasing display the piece concluded.
[10] Settle's pamphlet was contumaciously entitled, "Notes and
Observations on the Empress of Morocco revised, with some few erratas;
to be printed instead of the Postscript with the next Edition of the
Conquest of Granada, 1674." See some quotations from this piece, vol.
xv.
[11] His comedy of "Sir Courtly Nice" exhibits marks of comic power.
[The condemnation of his other work is a little too sweeping.--ED.]
[12] See vol. x.
[13] [As is the case with many other circumstances of the life of
Dryden, this business of _Calisto_ has been much exaggerated. The amount
of positive evidence of Rochester's interference is exceedingly small,
and of his ill offices in regard to the epilogue there is no proof
whatever.--ED.]
[14] So called, according to the communicative old correspondent of the
Gentleman's Magazine in 1745, from the unalterable stiffness of his long
cravat.
[15] "I am well satisfied I had the greatest party of men of wit and
sense on my side: amongst which I can never enough acknowledge the
unspeakable obligations I received from the Earl of R., who, far above
what I am ever able to deserve from him, seemed almost to make it his
business to establish it in the good opinion of the king and his royal
highness; from both of which I have since received confirmations of
their good-liking of it, and encouragement to proceed. And it is to him,
I must, in all gratitude, confess, I owe the greatest part of my good
success in this and on whose indulgency I extremely build my hopes of a
next." Accordingly, next year, Otway's play of "Titus and Berenice" is
inscribed to Rochester, "his good and generous patron."
[16]
"Tom Otway came next, Tom Shailwell's dear zany,
And swears for heroics he writes best of any;
'Don Carlos' his pockets so amply had filled,
That his mange was quite cured, and his lice were all killed.
But Apollo had seen his face on the stage,
And prudently did not think fit to engage
The scum of a playhouse for the prop of an age."
[17] "Though a certain writer, that shall be nameless (but you may guess
at him by what follows), being ask'd his opinion of this play, very
gravely cock't, and cry'd, _I'gad_ he knew not a line in it he would be
authour of. But he is a fine facetious witty person, as my friend Sir
Formal has it; and to be even with him, I know a comedy of his, that has
not so much as a quibble in it which I would be authour of. And so,
reader, I bid him and thee farewell." The use of Dryden's interjection,
well known through Bayes's employing it, ascertains him to be the poet
meant.
[18]
"Well, sir, 'tis granted; I said Dryden's rhymes
Were stolen, unequal, nay dull many times;
What foolish patron is there found of his,
So blindly partial to deny me this?
But that his plays, embroidered up and down
With learning, justly pleased the town,
In the same paper I as freely own.
Yet, having this allowed, the heavy mass,
That stuffs up his loose volumes, must not pass;
For by that rule I might as well admit
Crowne's tedious scenes for poetry and wit.
'Tis therefore not enough when your false sense
Hits the false judgment of an audience
Of clapping fools assembling, a vast crowd,
Till the thronged playhouse cracked with the dull load;
Though even that talent merits, in some sort,
That can divert the rabble and the court;
Which blundering Settle never could obtain,
And puzzling Otway labours at in vain."
He afterwards mentions Etherege's seductive poetry, and adds:
"Dryden in vain tried this nice way of wit;
For he, to be a tearing blade, thought fit
To give the ladies a dry bawdy bob;
And thus he got the name of _Poet Squab_.
But to be just, 'twill to his praise be found,
His excellencies more than faults abound;
Nor dare I from his sacred temples tear
The laurel, which he best deserves to wear.
But does not Dryden find even Jonson dull?
Beaumont and Fletcher uncorrect, and full
Of lewd lines, as he calls them? Shakespeare's style
Stiff and affected? To his own the while
Allowing all the justice that his pride
So arrogantly had to these denied?
And may not I have leave impartially
To search and censure Dryden's works, and try
If those gross faults his choice pen doth commit,
Proceed from want of judgment, or of wit?
Or if his lumpish fancy does refuse
Spirit and grace, to his loose slattern muse?
Five hundred verses every morning writ,
Prove him no more a poet than a wit."
[19]
"Rochester I despise for's mere want of wit,
Though thought to have a tail and cloven feet;
For while he mischief means to all mankind,
Himself alone the ill effects does find;
And so, like witches, justly suffers shame,
Whose harmless malice is so much the same.
False are his words, affected is his wit,
So often does he aim, so seldom hit.
To every face he cringes while he speaks,
But when the back is turned, the head he breaks.
Mean in each action, lewd in every limb,
Manners themselves are mischievous in him;
A proof that chance alone makes every creature,--
A very Killigrew, without good-nature.
For what a [Transcriber's note: "Bessus?" Print unclear] has he always
lived,
And his own kickings notably contrived;
For (there's the folly that's still mixed with fear)
Cowards more blows than any hero bear.
Of fighting sparks Fame may her pleasure say,
But 'tis a bolder thing to run away.
The world may well forgive him all his ill,
For every fault does prove his penance still.
Falsely he lulls into some dangerous noose,
And then as meanly labours to get loose.
A life so infamous is better quitting;
Spent in base injury and low submitting.--
I'd like to have left out his poetry,
Forgot by all almost as well as me.
Sometimes he has some humour, never wit,
And if it rarely, very rarely hit,
'Tis under such a nasty rubbish laid,
To find it out's the cinder-woman's trade;
Who for the wretched remnants of a fire,
Must toil all day in ashes and in mire.
So lewdly dull his idle works appear,
The wretched text deserves no comments here;
Where one poor thought sometime's left all alone,
For a whole page of dulness to atone:
'Mongst forty bad, one tolerable line,
Without expression, fancy, or design."
[20] "Whereas John Dryden, Esq., was on Monday the 18th instant, at
night, barbarously assaulted, and wounded in Rose-street, in
Covent-garden, by divers men unknown; if any person shall make
discovery of the said offenders to the said Mr. Dryden, or to any
justice of the peace, he shall not only receive fifty pounds, which is
deposited in the hands of Mr. Blanchard, goldsmith, next door to
Temple-bar, for the said purpose; but if he be a principal, or an
accessory, in the said fact, his Majesty is graciously pleased to
promise him his pardon for the same."--_London Gazette_, from December
18th to December 22d, 1679. Mr. Malone mentions the same advertisement
in a newspaper, entitled, "Domestic Intelligence or News from City and
Country."
[21] I might also mention the sentiment of Count Conigsmarck, who
allowed, that the barbarous assassination of Mr. Thynne by his bravoes
was a slain on his blood, but such a one as a good action in the wars,
or a lodging on a counterscarp, would easily wash out. See his Trial,
"State Trials," vol. iv. But Conigsmarck was a foreigner.
[22] For example, a rare broadside in ridicule of Benjamin Harris the
Whig publisher, entitled, "The Saint turned Courtezan, or a new Plot
discovered by a precious Zealot of an Assault and Battery designed upon
the Body of a sanctified Sister,
"Who, in her husband's absence, with a brother
Did often use to comfort one another,
Till wide-mouthed Crop, who is an old Italian,
Took his mare nappy, and surprised her stallion,
Who, steal of entertainment from his mistress,
Did meet a cudgelling not matched in histories."
"Who's there?" quoth watchful Argus.
"Tis I, in longing passion,
Give me a kiss."
Quoth Ben, "Take this,
_A Dryden salutation_."
"Help Care, Vile, Smith, and Curtes,
Each zealous covenanter!
What wonder the atheist
L'Estrange should turn papist,
When a zealot turns a ranter."
[23] Vol. xiii.
[24] Cibber's Apology, 4to, p. 74.
[25] Vol. xv.
[26] Vol. v.
[27] Vol. v.
[28] This distinction our author himself points out in the Prologue. The
poet there says,
"His hero, whom you wits his bully call,
Bates of his mettle, and scarce rants at all;
He's somewhat lewd, but a well-meaning mind,
Weeps much, fights little, but is wondrous kind."--Vol. v.
[29] See Footnote 26, Section II, this volume.
[30] Mr. Malone has seen a MS. copy of "Limberham" in its original
state, found by Bolingbroke in the sweepings of Pope's study. It
contained several exceptionable passages, afterwards erased or altered.
[31] Vol. vi.
[32] By allusion to the act for burying in woollen.
[33] [Transcriber's note: "See their Petition, page 88" in original.
This is to be found in Footnote 26, Section II.]
[34] Vol. vi.
[35] This is ridiculed in "Chrononhotonthologos."
[36] Parallel of Poetry and Painting, vol. xvii.
[37] [Transcriber's note: "See page 181" in original. This approximates
to paragraphs preceding reference [26] in text, Section IV.]
[38] He is said to have cast the eyes of ambitious affection on the Lady
Anne (afterwards queen), daughter of the Duke of York; at which
presumption Charles was so much offended, that when Mulgrave went to
relieve Tangier in 1680, he is said to have been appointed to a leaky
and frail vessel, in hopes that he might perish; an injury which he
resented so highly, as not to permit the king's health to be drunk at
his table till the voyage was over. On his return from Tangier he was
refused the regiment of the Earl of Plymouth; and, considering his
services as neglected, for a time joined those who were discontented
with the government. He was probably reclaimed by receiving the
government of Hull and lieutenancy of Yorkshire. See vol. ix.
[39] In a poem called "The Laureat," the satirist is so ill informed, as
still to make Dryden the author of the "Essay on Satire." Surely it is
unlikely to suppose, that he should have submitted to the loss of a
pension, which he so much needed, rather than justify himself, where
justification was so easy. Yet his resentment is said to have been
"For Pension lost, and justly, without doubt:
When servants snarl we ought to kick them out.
* * * * *
That lost, the visor changed, you turn about,
And straight a true-blue Protestant crept out.
The _Friar_ now was wrote; and some will say,
They smell a malcontent through all the play."
See the whole passage, vol. vi.
[40] See, for this point also, the volume last quoted.
[41] In "A Modest Vindication of Antony, Earl of Shaftesbury, in a
Letter to a Friend concerning his having been elected King of Poland,"
Dryden is named poet-laureate to the supposed king-elect, and Shadwell
his deputy. See vol. ix.
[42] "Dryden being very desirous of knowing how much Southerne had made
by the profits of one of his plays, the other, conscious of the little
success Dryden had met with in theatrical compositions, declined the
question, and answered, he was really ashamed to acquaint him. Dryden
continuing to be solicitous to be informed, Southerne owned he had
cleared by his last play ВЈ700; which appeared astonishing to Dryden, who
was perhaps ashamed to confess, that he had never been able to acquire,
by any of his most successful pieces, more than ВЈ100."--_Life of
Southerne_ prefixed to his Plays.
[43] There was published, 1679, a translation of Appian, printed for
John Amery at the Peacock, against St. Dunstan's Church, Fleet-street.
It is inscribed by the translator, J.D., to the Earl of Ossory; and
seems to have been undertaken by his command. This work is usually
termed in catalogues, Dryden's Appian. I presume it may be the work of
that Jonathan Dryden who is mentioned in p 26.
SECTION V.
_Dryden engages in Politics--Absalom and Achitophel, Part First--The
Medal--MacFlecknoe--Absalom and Achitophel, Part Second--The Duke of
Guise._
The controversies, in which Dryden had hitherto been engaged, were of a
private complexion, arising out of literary disputes and rivalry. But
the country was now deeply agitated by political faction; and so
powerful an auxiliary was not permitted by his party to remain in a
state of inactivity. The religion of the Duke of York rendered him
obnoxious to a large proportion of the people, still agitated by the
terrors of the Popish Plot. The Duke of Monmouth, handsome, young,
brave, and courteous, had all the external requisites for a popular
idol; and what he wanted in mental qualities was amply supplied by the
Machiavel subtlety of Shaftesbury. The life of Charles was the only
isthmus between these contending tides, "which, mounting, viewed each
other from afar, and strove in vain to meet." It was already obvious,
that the king's death was to be the signal of civil war. His situation
was doubly embarrassing, because, in all probability, Monmouth, whose
claims were both unjust in themselves and highly derogatory to the
authority of the crown, was personally amiable, and more beloved by
Charles than was his inflexible and bigoted brother. But to consent to
the bill for excluding the lawful heir from the crown, would have been
at the same time putting himself in a state of pupillage for the rest of
his reign, and evincing to his subjects, that they had nothing to expect
from attachment to his person, or defence of his interest. This was a
sacrifice not to be thought of so long as the dreadful recollection of
the wars in the preceding reign determined a large party to support the
monarch, while he continued willing to accept of their assistance.
Charles accordingly adopted a determined course; and, to the rage rather
than confusion of his partisans, Monmouth was banished to Holland, from
whence he boldly returned without the king's licence, and openly assumed
the character of the leader of a party. Estranged from court, he made
various progresses through the country, and employed every art which the
genius of Shaftesbury could suggest, to stimulate the courage, and to
increase the number, of his partisans. The press, that awful power, so
often and so rashly misused, was not left idle. Numbers of the
booksellers were distinguished as Protestant or fanatical publishers;
and their shops teemed with the furious declamations of Ferguson, the
inflammatory sermons of Hickeringill, the political disquisitions of
Hunt, and the party plays and libellous poems of Settle and Shadwell. An
host of rhymers, inferior even to those last named, attacked the king,
the Duke of York, and the ministry, in songs and libels, which, however
paltry, were read, sung, rehearsed, and applauded. It was time that some
champion should appear in behalf of the crown, before the public should
have been irrecoverably alienated by the incessant and slanderous
clamour of its opponents. Dryden's place, talents, and mode of thinking,
qualified him for this task. He was the poet-laureate and household
servant of the king thus tumultuously assailed. His vein of satire was
keen, terse, and powerful, beyond any that has since been displayed.
From the time of the Restoration, he had been a favourer of monarchy,
perhaps more so, because the opinion divided him from his own family. If
he had been for a time neglected, the smiles of a sovereign soon make
his coldness forgotten; and if his narrow fortune was not increased, or
even rendered stable, he had promises of provision, which inclined him
to look to the future with hope, and endure the present with patience.
If he had shared in the discontent which for a time severed Mulgrave
from the royal party, that cause ceased to operate when his patron was
reconciled to the court, and received a share of the spoils of the
disgraced Monmouth.[1] If there wanted further impulse to induce Dryden,
conscious of his strength, to mingle in an affray where it might be
displayed to advantage, he had the stimulus of personal attachment and
personal enmity, to sharpen his political animosity. Ormond, Halifax,
and Hyde, Earl of Rochester, among the nobles, were his patrons; Lee and
Southerne, among the poets, were his friends. These were partisans of
royalty. The Duke of York, whom the "Spanish Friar" probably had
offended, was conciliated by a prologue on his visiting the theatre at
his return from Scotland,[2] and it is said, by the omission of certain
peculiarly offensive passages, so soon as the play was reprinted.[3] The
opposite ranks contained Buckingham, author of the "Rehearsal;"
Shadwell, with whom our poet now urged open war; and Settle, the
insolence of whose rivalry was neither forgotten nor duly avenged. The
respect due to Monmouth was probably the only consideration to be
overcome: but his character was to be handled with peculiar lenity; and
his duchess, who, rather than himself, had patronised Dryden, was so
dissatisfied with the politics, as well as the other irregularities, of
her husband, that there was no danger of her taking a gentle correction
of his ambition as any affront to herself. Thus stimulated by every
motive, and withheld by none, Dryden composed, and on the 17th November
1681 published, the satire of "Absalom and Achitophel."
The plan of the satire was not new to the public. A Catholic poet had,
in 1679, paraphrased the scriptural story of Naboth's vine-yard and
applied it to the condemnation of Lord Stafford, on account of the
Popish Plot.[4] This poem is written in the style of a scriptural
allusion; the names and situations of personages in the holy text being
applied to those contemporaries, to whom the author assigned a place in
his piece. Neither was the obvious application of the story of Absalom
and Achitophel to the persons of Monmouth and Shaftesbury first made by
our poet. A prose paraphrase, published in 1080, had already been
composed upon this allusion.[5] But the vigour of the satire, the happy
adaptation, not only of the incidents, but of the very names to the
individuals characterised, gave Dryden's poem the full effect of
novelty. It appeared a very short time after Shaftesbury had been
committed to the Tower, and only a few days before the grand jury were
to take under consideration the bill preferred against him for high
treason. Its sale was rapid beyond example; and even those who were most
severely characterised, were compelled to acknowledge the beauty, if not
the justice, of the satire. The character of Monmouth, an easy and
gentle temper, inflamed beyond its usual pitch by ambition, and seduced
by the arts of a wily and interested associate, is touched with
exquisite delicacy. The poet is as careful of the offending Absalom's
fame, as the father in Scripture of the life of his rebel son. The
fairer side of his character is industriously presented, and a veil
drawn over all that was worthy of blame. But Shaftesbury pays the lenity
with which Monmouth is dismissed. The traits of praise, and the tribute
paid to that statesman's talents, are so qualified and artfully blended
with censure, that they seem to render his faults even more conspicuous,
and more hateful. In this skilful mixture of applause and blame lies the
nicest art of satire. There must be an appearance of candour on the part
of the poet, and just so much merit allowed, even to the object of his
censure, as to make his picture natural. It is a child alone who fears
the aggravated terrors of a Saracen's head; the painter, who would move
the awe of an enlightened spectator, must delineate his tyrant with
human features. It seems likely, that Dryden considered the portrait of
Shaftesbury, in the first edition of "Absalom and Achitophel," as
somewhat deficient in this respect; at least the second edition contains
twelve additional lines, the principal tendency of which is to praise
the ability and integrity with which Shaftesbury had discharged the
office of lord high chancellor. It has been reported, that this
mitigation was intended to repay a singular exertion of generosity on
Shaftesbury's part, who, while smarting under the lash of Dryden's
satire, and in the short interval between the first and second edition
of the poem, had the liberality to procure admission for the poet's son
upon the foundation of the Charterhouse, of which he was then governor.
But Mr. Malone has fully confuted this tale, and shown, from the records
of the seminary, that Dryden's son Erasmus was admitted upon the
recommendation of the king himself.[6] The insertion, therefore, of the
lines in commemoration of Shaftesbury's judicial character, was a
voluntary effusion on the part of Dryden, and a tribute which he seems
to have judged it proper to pay to the merit even of an enemy. Others of
the party of Monmouth, or rather of the opposition party (for it
consisted, as is commonly the case, of a variety of factions, agreeing
in the single principle of opposition to the government), were
stigmatised with severity, only inferior to that applied to Achitophel.
Among these we distinguish the famous Duke of Buckingham, with whom,
under the character of Zimri, our author balanced accounts for his share
in the "Rehearsal;" Bethel, the Whig sheriff, whose scandalous avarice
was only equalled by his factious turbulence; and Titus Oates, the
pretended discoverer of the Popish Plot. The account of the Tory chiefs,
who retained, in the language of the poem, their friendship for David at
the expense of the popular hatred, included, of course, most of Dryden's
personal protectors. The aged Duke of Ormond is panegyrised with a
beautiful apostrophe to the memory of his son, the gallant Earl of
Ossory. The Bishops of London and Rochester; Mulgrave our author's
constant patron, now reconciled with Charles and his government; the
plausible and trimming Halifax; and Hyde, Earl of Rochester, second son
to the great Clarendon, appear in this list. The poet having thus
arrayed and mustered the forces on each side, some account of the combat
is naturally expected; and Johnson complains, that, after all the
interest excited, the story is but lamely winded up by a speech from the
throne, which produces the instantaneous and even marvellous effect, of
reconciling all parties, and subduing the whole phalanx of opposition.
Even thus, says the critic, the walls, towers, and battlements of an
enchanted castle disappear, when the destined knight winds his horn
before it. Spence records in his Anecdotes, that Charles himself imposed
on Dryden the task of paraphrasing the speech to his Oxford parliament,
at least the most striking passages, as a conclusion to his poem of
"Absalom and Achitophel."
But let us consider whether the nature of the poem admitted of a
different management in the close. Incident was not to be attempted; for
the poet had described living characters and existing factions, the
issue of whose contention was yet in the womb of fate, and could not
safely be anticipated in the satire. Besides, the dissolution of the
Oxford parliament with that memorable speech, was a remarkable era in
the contention of the factions, after which the Whigs gradually
declined, both in spirit, in power, and in popularity. Their boldest
leaders were for a time appalled;[7] and when they resumed their
measures, they gradually approached rather revolution than reform, and
thus alienated the more temperate of their own party, till at length
their schemes terminated in the Rye-house Conspiracy. The speech having
such an effect, was therefore not improperly adopted as a termination to
the poem of "Absalom and Achitophel."
The success of this wonderful satire was so great, that the court had
again recourse to the assistance of its author. Shaftesbury was now
liberated from the Tower; for the grand jury, partly influenced by
deficiency of proof, and partly by the principles of the Whig party, out
of which the sheriffs had carefully selected them, refused to find the
bill of high treason against him. This was a subject of unbounded
triumph to his adherents, who celebrated his acquittal by the most
public marks of rejoicing. Amongst others, a medal was struck, bearing
the head and name of Shaftesbury, and on the reverse, a sun, obscured
with a cloud, rising over the Tower and city of London, with the date of
the refusal of the bill (24th November 1681), and the motto LAETAMUR.
These medals, which his partisans wore ostentatiously at their bosoms,
excited the general indignation of the Tories; and the king himself is
said to have suggested it as a theme for the satirical muse of Dryden,
and to have rewarded his performance with an hundred broad pieces. To a
poet of less fertility, the royal command, to write again upon a
character which, in a former satire, he had drawn with so much precision
and felicity, might have been as embarrassing at least as honourable.
But Dryden was inexhaustible; and easily discovered, that, though he had
given the outline of Shaftesbury in "Absalom and Achitophel," the
finished colouring might merit another canvas. About the sixteenth of
March 1681, he published, anonymously "The Medal, a Satire against
Sedition," with the apt motto,
"_Per Graium populos, mediaeque per Elidis urbem
Ibat ovans; Divumque sibi poscebat honores._"
In this satire, Shaftesbury's history; his frequent political
apostasies; his licentious course of life, so contrary to the stern
rigour of the fanatics, with whom he had associated; his arts in
instigating the fury of the anti-monarchists; in fine, all the political
and moral bearings of his character sounded and exposed to contempt and
reprobation, the beauty of the poetry adding grace to the severity of
the satire. What impression these vigorous and well-aimed darts made
upon Shaftesbury, who was so capable of estimating their sharpness and
force, we have no means to ascertain; but long afterwards, his grandson,
the author of the "Characteristics," speaks of Dryden and his works with
a bitter affectation of contempt, offensive to every reader of judgment,
and obviously formed on prejudice against the man, rather than dislike
to the poetry.[8] It is said, that he felt more resentment on account of
the character of imbecility adjudged to his father in "Absalom and
Achitophel," than for all the pungent satire, there and in the "Medal,"
bestowed upon his grandfather; an additional proof, how much more easy
it is to bear those reflections which render ourselves or our friends
hateful, than those by which they are only made ridiculous and
contemptible. The Whig poets, for many assumed that title, did not
behold these attacks upon their leader and party with patience or
forbearance; but they rushed to the combat with more zeal, or rather
fury, than talent or policy. Their efforts are numbered and described
elsewhere;[9] so that we need here only slightly notice those which
Dryden thought worthy of his own animadversion. Most of them adopted the
clumsy and obvious expedient of writing their answers in the style of
the successful satire which had provoked them. Thus, in reply to
"Absalom and Achitophel," Pordage and Settle imitated the plan of
bestowing scriptural names on their poem and characters the former
entitling his piece "Azaria and Hushai," the latter, "Absalom Senior, or
Absalom and Achitophel transposed." But these attempts to hurl back the
satire at him by whom it was first launched, succeeded but
indifferently, and might have convinced the authors that the charm of
"Absalom and Achitophel" lay not in the plan, but in the power of
execution. It was easy to give Jewish titles to their heroes, but the
difficulty lay in drawing their characters with the force and precision
of their prototype. Buckingham himself was rash enough to engage in this
conflict; but, whether his anger blunted his wit, or that his share in
the "Rehearsal" was less even than what is generally supposed, he loses,
by his "Reflections on Absalom and Achitophel," the credit we are
disposed to allow him for talent on the score of that lively piece.[10]
A nonconformist clergyman published two pieces, which I have never seen,
one entitled, "A Whip for the Fool's Back, who styles honourable
Marriage a cursed confinement, in his profane Poem of Absalom and
Achitophel;" the other, "A Key, with the Whip, to open the Mystery and
Iniquity of the Poem called Absalom and Achitophel." Little was to be
hoped or feared from poems bearing such absurd titles: I throw, however,
into the note, the specimen which Mr. Malone has given of their
contents.[11] The reverend gentleman having announced, that Achitophel,
in Hebrew, means "the brother of a fool," Dryden retorted, with infinite
coolness, that in that case the author of the discovery might pass with
his readers for next akin, and that it was probably the relation which
made the kindness.
